St. Landry democrat., 1887-12-24

there shall be music at the close. While
this heavenly art has often been
dragged into the use of supersti-
ton and dissipation, we all know
it may be the means of high moral cul-
ture. Oh, it is grand thing to have our
children brought up amidst the sound of
cultured voices and amidst the melody
of musical instruments. There is in this
art an indescribable fascination for the
household. Let all those families who
have the means to afford it have flute or
harp, or piano or organ. As soon as the
hand is large enough to compass the
keys, teach it how to pick out the
melody. Let all our young men try this
heavenly art upon their nature. Those
who have gone into it fully have found
in it illimitable recreation and amusc-
ment. Dark days, stormy nights, sea
sons of sickness, business disasters, will
do little toward depressing the soul
which can gallop off over musical keys
or soar in jubilant lay. 1t will cure pain.
1t will rest fatigue. 1t will quell pas
sion. 1t will revive health. 1t will re-
claim dissipation. 1t will trengthen
the immortal soul. In the battle Of
Waterloo, Wellington saw that the
Highlanders were falling back. He
said, What is the matter there?' He
was told that the band of music had
ceased playing, and he called up the
pipers and ordered them to strike up an
inspriting air; and no sooner did they
strike the air than the Highlanders were
rallied and helped to win the day. Oh,
We who have been routed in the conflicts
of life, trv by the force of music to rally
your scattered battalions.
| am glad to know that in our great
cities there is hardly night in which
there are not concerts, where with the
best musical instruments and the sweet
est voices, people may find entertain
ment. PatroniZe such entertainments
when they are afforded you. Buy season
tickets, if you can, for the ''Philhar
monte and the Handel and Haydn"
societies. Feel that the dollar and half
or two dollars that you spend for the
purpose of hearing an artist play or sing
is a profitable investment. Let your
Steinway Halls and your Academies of
Music roar with the acclamation of ap-
preciative audiences assembled at the
concert or the oratOriO.
Still further: commend, as worthy of
their support, the gymnasium. This in
stitution is gaining in favor every year,
and | know of nothing more free from
dissipation, or more calculated to recup
crate the physical and mental energies.
While there area good many people who
have employed this institution, there is
vast number who are ignorant Of its ex
cellences. There are men with cramped
chests and weak sides and despondent
spirits who through the gymnasium
might be reused up to exuberance and
exhilaration of life There are many
Christian people respondent from year
to year, who might, through such an in
stitution, be benefited in their spiritual
relations. There are Christian people
who seem to think that It is good sign to
be poorly; and because Richard Baxter
and Robert Hall were invalids, they
think that by the same siCkliness they
may come to the same grandeur of char
acter. | want to tell the Christian peo-
pie of my congregation that God will
hold you responsible for your in
validism if it is your fault, and when
through right exercise and prudence you
might be athletic and well. The effect
of the body upon the soul you acknowl-
edge Put a man of mild disposition
upon the animal diet of which the Indian
partakes, and in little while his blood
will change its chemical proportions. 1t
will become like unto the blood of the
lion or the tiger or the bear, while his dis
position will change, and become fierce,
cruel and unrelenting. The body has
powerful effect upon the soul.
There are good people whose ideas of
Heaven are all shut out with clouds of
tobacco smoke. There are people who
dare to shatter the physical vase in which
are men with great hearts and intellects
in bodies worn out by their own neglects
machinery capable of pro-
pelling a Great Eastern across the At
lantic, yet fastened in a rickety North
river propeller. Martin Luther was so
mighty for God, first, because ne
had a noble soul, and secondly, be-
cause he had muscular development
which would have enabled him to thrash
any five of his prosecutors, if it had been
Christian so to do. Physical develop
ment which merely shows itself in fabu-
lous lifting; or in perilous ropewalking,
or in pugilistic encounter, excites only
our contempt; but we confess to great
admiration for the man who has a
great soul in an athletic body,
every nerve, muscle and bone of
which is consecrated to right uses.
Oh, 1t seems to me outrageous that
men, through neglect, should allow their
physical health to 60 down beyond repair
A ship which ought, with all sail set and
every man at his post, to be carrying
rich cargo for eternity, employing all its
men in stopping up leakages When
you may, through the gymnasium, work
off your spleen and your querulousness
and one-half of your physical and mental
ailments, do not turn your back upon
such grand medicament.
Still further: commend to you large
class of parlor games and recreations.
There is way of making our homes
more attractive than they
are now. Those parents cannot expect
to keep their children away from out
side dssipations unless they make the
domestic circle brighter than anything
they can find outside of it. Do not,
then, sit in your homes surly and
and with half
condemnatory look, because of the
sportfulness of your children. You
were young once yourself; let your
children be young. Because your eyes
are dim and your ankles are stiff, do not
denounce sportfulness in those upon
whose eyes there is the first lustre, and
in whose foot there is the bounding JOY